1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to tobacco harvester and more specifically to a power driven harvester which will sever the tobacco plant and automatically strip the leaves from the stalk.
2. Prior Art
For centuries the tobacco harvesting art has been a very laborious, time consuming manual operation wherein the individual leaves are picked by hand from the plant and tied into bundles for curing.
Various attempts have been made over the years to mechanize the tobacco harvesting operation but such attempts have usually been completely unacceptable since they generally attempt to strip the leaves from the stalk while the stalk is still attached to the plant. Such methods have generally resulted in such a degree of leaf damage that the subsequent tying of the leaves for the conventional curing process was impossible. Furthermore, the damaged leaves also resulted in a reduction of the value of the crop.
Newer tobacco curing techniques have been developed in recent years wherein the leaves are cured in bulk form in a specially designed box thereby eliminating the necessity for hand tying the leaves into bundles for curing on drying racks.